Effing Loud Taiwanese Churches

WTF. I know it’s only 9pm, and I suppose it’s only a Saturday evening, but the church behind my apartment has been incredibly and obnoxiously loud. I stuck my head out the window, and I could see that they’ve been having some sort of activity party going on outside in their parking lot. There’s a lot of percussion and music, people doing some ridiculous conga or train dance, and there’s an MC on a microphone, encouraging people to chant, woot, and yell at the top of their lungs like it’s friggin’ primal scream. I get a very bad feeling that this might last into 10pm or later.

Usually every Saturday evening/Sunday morning it’s annoyingly loud, but not like this. It’s been going on for at least 2 or 3 hours and I’ve had it, and I fucking want to blow the place up. Possibly do a victory war dance around the flames afterwards.

First of all, I want to know if this is typical for churches. Because the next time I look for a new apartment, I’ll know better than to move into a place near one.

Also, I’d like to know if there’s anything I can do about it. Am I allowed to call the police (not that that ever does much anyhow)?

That is…interesting. I definitely don’t think that’s typical. We live near a couple of churches (and I pass by several others all the time) and I have never, ever heard a peep out of them. The only time I’ve ever heard music at night is around Christmastime when they were singing carols out front–it wasn’t loud and they were always done by 8 or so.

I’ve gotten some raised eyebrows from foreign friends who attend churches themselves too. I think this church is especially bad. On Saturdays, the younger church members go there to play Christian rock until as late as 10 or 11pm. Then bright and early on Sundays, there’s loud singing, and the preacher is preaching through a microphone, broadcasting it not only to the people attending mass inside, but to the streets via SPEAKERS. So I hear EVERYTHING. It’s a pretty terrible way to wake up every Sunday.

Christmases are far worse because it’s the same thing, just all day.

There was one occasion where I visited a recreational farm in Meinong, hoping to get some peace and quiet. Just my luck, a Christian youth group was visiting the same week. They too played really loud Christian rock until at least midnight.

just go see if they have free food.

We have this in Changhua as well. Does anyone know what it’s about?

The other day I went into an alley nearby my place of employment to get some photocopying done. As I approached the photocopy shop I usually went to, I heard this loud “Hallelujah!” emanating from where the shop was supposed to be. The next thing I saw, in the shop, was a loud, rollicking church service, complete with a preacher with a microphone, dramatic music blasting out at a high volume, a power-point slideshow, and a congregation holding up their arms in praise, going on inside the photocopy shop! The photocopy machines were still there, so it didn’t look like they had closed down and become a full-time church. Very strange. Plus it was a Wednesday evening, not a Sunday morning… bizarre.

And yes, it was effing loud.

So I continued down the alley to find another photocopy shop that fulfilled my photocopying needs in a friendly and efficient manner, cheaply and to my total satisfaction. Looks like the churchy photocopy shop has lost a customer, and their competitor has gained one.

It’s Taiwan. It’s meant to be loud. Any public gathering, be it a church, school, funeral, etc. is meant to be as loud and annoying as possible. That’s just how it is here. The quiet places are the odd places.

I live near a nasty temple and periodically they have screaming sessions to exorcise ghosts and whatnot, whilst nibbling on their tiger penis soup and gnawing down on some knob-erecting rhino horn. There’s always some charlatan barking shit into a microphone and morons screeching karaoke, amidst the blasting of boom!fireworks and bang!lemmegettothefoodfirst.

It’s a universal malady. I guess the thinking is that the louder you shout the more likely it is that god will hear you. And the more you jump up and down like a buffoon, the more likely it is that She will see you, and take heed of your pleas for moremoney, longlife and biggerpenis.

election time?

[quote=“jimipresley”]I live near a nasty temple and periodically they have screaming sessions to exorcise ghosts and whatnot, whilst nibbling on their tiger penis soup and gnawing down on some knob-erecting rhino horn. There’s always some charlatan barking shit into a microphone and morons screeching karaoke, amidst the blasting of boom!fireworks and bang!lemmegettothefoodfirst.

It’s a universal malady. I guess the thinking is that the louder you shout the more likely it is that god will hear you. And the more you jump up and down like a buffoon, the more likely it is that She will see you, and take heed of your pleas for moremoney, longlife and biggerpenis.[/quote]

Ain’t that the truth. youtube.com/watch?v=xkfJxxglQbg